The sun sets over a vast ocean, and a girl sits cross-legged on a terrace, overlooking a grove of trees. Laughter and chatter roll intermittently through the halls, filling the air with warmth and music. [i]Happiness. Home. Love.[/i] The girl opens her eyes. The trees below bend and twirl with the wind, doing a complicated dance. Swooping cranes chitter as they run from the waves, louder than the ocean roars against the shore. The girl looked down at herself, she couldn't be more than a small child. Parts of a conversation float up from the middle wing of the house. "Is she still upstairs? I'm almost finished with supper." Mothers voice is unmistakable, a southern accent as sweet and thick as molasses. Even 6 generations after Earth's destruction, her accent was just the same as when she was raised there. [i]Wait, Mothers... voice?[/i]

Something is wrong. Everything looks too bright, too perfect. She looks around, and everything reminds her of a faraway place. Something that doesn't exist anymore. This place has been abandoned for years. Another nagging memory pierces her brain. [i]Home is gone. Mother is gone. They are never coming back.[/i] At the realization, the colors in her vision start bleeding, the laughter fades and the floor starts giving way. Something is very [i]wrong.[/i] 

Soft beeping replaces the laughter, and ice-cold metal binding her wrists replaces the warm ocean breeze. She shakes her head, trying to force the fog from her brain. The memories she thought she lost. The people she left behind. [i]Where the fuck am I?[/i] She looks around at the interior of the ship's cockpit. Too many lights and that's no language she understands scrawled across the dashboard panels. She was never much of a pilot in the first place. 

Concentrating on the back of the pilot's head, she attempted to worm her way into their mind, but it wasn't working. She could barely navigate her own mind, traversing someone elses was pretty much out of the question.

As she opened her mouth to get the pilot's attention, the door to the cockpit busted open and out of the corner of her eye, the barrel of a small pistol was pressed on her temple. "Close your mouth and keep your brains." His was gruff voice, definitely a 30's male or older. She obliged for now, but she hated biting her tongue. 

"Temine, how much longer?" the man asks. The pilot, Temine, turned around and Alex could see that her face was horribly disfigured. Half was an average-looking mid-20s woman, and the other half looked like she had be attacked with acid. "Only a few minutes, Brigadier General Redd." 

"Redd?!" She could hold her tongue no longer. "Redd, what the fuck? Untie me right now! My own fucking brother!" She was almost spitting the words out. She heard him cock the pistol, time slowed down to a crawl. She braced herself, knowing that this was her moment. Would she finally be at peace? She sighed, closed her eyes again, and waited for the shot. When it finally came, she jumped. And then she opened her eyes. Temine lay face down on the control panel, pushing the throttle forward, much faster than she supposed the ship was supposed to go.

"God damn it!" Redd launched to the controls and attempted to regain course over Temine's lifeless body. "If you would have just kept your mouth shut, we would be fine! I was here to help you! Now I have to drop you off somewhere else." She was no stranger to death, yet she couldn't take her eyes off the gaping wound in the back of the girls head. [i]Why?[/i] As the ship stabilized, she could feel the swirl in her stomach as the ship changed directions. She wondered when she had eaten last. If anyone else was on the ship. Who would miss this poor woman in front of her?

Redd pushed the body to the floor and settled into the seat. Alex sat in stunned silence for the remainder of the trip.

As they got closer to the rift, she felt that she could remember something familiar about the route, but couldn't place it. Had she really lost that much time? What's the last thing she could actually remember?

The ship hovered directly above the rift for a few minutes while Redd made sure it was stable enough to be left. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Remember to keep your mouth shut this time. You are going to be blamed for this." He gestured to the woman lying on the floor, now rolled to her back, her disfigured cheek and eye the only part of her face visible to Alex. She nodded and lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry Redd, I don't remember much... I... uh-" He cut her off, "I know, I know. It's bad when even your loud mouth can't string words together. Everything is going to be alright. Just be quiet until you're off the ship. The landing is going to be hard. Stay there and lay low. Nobody knows where you are and not many people can purposefully navigate here. You'll be safe. Just wait for my word. Stay. There. Lay. Low. Got it?" She looked up and searched his face. He was telling the truth. She nodded. He gave her a sad smile before he got up and opened the cockpit door.

Before she knew it, she was hauled out of the seat and tossed out of the cockpit onto the floor of what looked like a cargo deck. Her question was answered, she wasn't the only one on the ship. The whole crew was gathered, about 10 others. They glared at her in silence. Someone was crying. Suddenly she felt bad that Temine had died because of her. Sort of. Her brother even looked a bit forlorn. She got up to her feet, no thanks to her hands that were still held with shackles behind her back. Looking around the deck, it looked like a freighting ship, likely part of the Federations fleet. She supposed they thought it was safer to move her than a prison transport ship would be. 

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the crew stepped up to her and spit in her face before grabbing her arm and dragging her to what looked like a large closet. [i]With seats? An escape pod, of course.[/i] Redd came in and pushed her into a seat. The silence and the stares from the crew made the air thick, she took a deep breath of stale air and looked up at Redd. [b][i]SMACK[/i][/b] The back of Redds hand made sharp contact with her temple, a warm sensation blurred her vision. With her other eye she saw the blood on his Federation ring as he brought his hand down. [i]That bastard! Fuck, keep it together.[/i] She could have killed him, and the whole crew if she could get her powers to work. 

Redd strapped the safety restraints tight and bent down to whisper in her ear, "I don't have time to explain, I'll send a letter. Our old code, if you can remember it." She didn't make any indication that she heard him, aware that the crew was watching them carefully. She did remember that, those days were about all she remembered. 

She didn't look up as he walked away. Nor when he closed and latched the door. Not even when she could hear the mechanisms releasing the pod. She only looked up when the pod had started falling, looking out the large window looking towards the rift. She wondered why this place? What's beyond the rift? [i]It's pretty beautiful, no?[/i]

The G-Force from the rift plunged her mind into darkness. The only thing she could comprehend was the heat. And the impact. 

The pod hurdled toward a field, just a half mile from the Tavern. The impact of the pod rang out with a sonic boom, and as the dust settled, the silence was deafening.

[img]https://i.pinimg.com/474x/52/2e/47/522e47b427d4fc6344a63720a9e768d7--pod-science-fiction.jpg[/img]